Several times during the partial government shutdown, President Donald Trump has claimed that federal workers are on his side.

Now, we’re hearing from one of those workers.

“I’m very strongly behind it, yes,” Amanda Schimone said. “I just believe in what we are doing. I believe in the President’s policies and Secretary Nielsen’s policies, and supporting the border patrol agents.”

Schimone spent 26 years in the U.S. Air Force before retiring in 2012. Now, she works at the Department of Homeland Security’s federal law enforcement training center in Cheltenham, Maryland.

“We train all the federal agents, through all the different agencies. Not just DHS, but FBI, the state department, that kind of thing,” she said.

Despite the fact that’s she been furloughed since the shutdown began, Schimone says she supports the border wall on behalf of her colleagues who patrol the border every single day.

“If you had a tool that would help you do your job better and to be able to have border security – they’re my coworkers – I don’t know them personally, but if they say that’s what they need to do their job, than I support them 100 percent,” she said.

Schimone’s husband also works for the federal government, but is not impacted by the partial government shutdown. She says they’re relying on his income plus a pension she gets from the U.S. Air Force to pay their bills while her DHS paychecks are on hold.

“We’ve put away money, we have a financial planner, we’ve been really cognizant of doing that,” she said. “My credit card bills, they’re just getting the minimum payment right now.”

Still, she knows there are a lot of federal employees who are struggling financially due as the shutdown drags on.

“I do have for empathy for them. I do understand that some people live paycheck to paycheck,” she said.

She also understands that a lot of people may not like her perspective on the government shutdown. And she says that’s okay.

“I don’t judge people,” she said. “They have a right to their opinion, and I have a right to mine.”

At the very least, she hopes people will listen to what she has to say.

“Do I like being furloughed? No. But I understand and I support them,” she said. “I realize America is where people really want to be, but I think there’s a right way to come into our country, and not illegally. And so that’s one of the reasons why I do support the border wall.”

She hopes the president and Congress can soon agree on funding for the wall, and get the government back open.

“Maybe negotiate the amount that President Trump wants or some type of other immigration policies, but it sure would be nice if they would try to work together,” she said. “No negotiations makes me feel like they don’t care about the Department of Homeland Security.”

Sunday, December 9, 2018

BUY PRESENTS AND GIVE THEM TO POOR CHILDREN & HOMELESS PEOPLE IN DECEMBER 2018.

Post Sources: Youtube

“34 Then the King will say to those on His right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: 35 for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; 36 I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.’

37 “Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? 38 When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? 39 Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did itto one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.”

Congressional leaders announced that an arrival ceremony will be held for Bush on Monday at 5 p.m. ET. The public will then be invited to pay their respects from 7:30 p.m. until 7:00 a.m. Wednesday. The statement said that the Bush family will provide additional details regarding arrangements beyond the ceremony at the Capitol.

Sunday, November 18, 2018

REGARDLESS OF WHAT LIES THE RACIST MAINSTREAM MEDIA POSTS, KIM CAN NEVER BE REPLACED IN DIDDY’S LIFE NOR THE LIVES OF HIS CHILDREN.

KIM PORTER WAS NOT A “BABY MAMA”, SHE WAS A BEAUTIFUL, INTELLIGENT, LOVING MOTHER WHO DIED MUCH TOO SOON.

I’M NOT JUDGING BUT I KNOW DIDDY TRULY LOVED KIM AND HE SHOULD HAVE MARRIED HER.

I’M JUST SAYING.

PLEASE EVERYONE PRAY FOR ALL OF DIDDY’S CHILDREN.

Post Sources: Instagram, People, Youtube

”For the last three days I’ve been trying to wake up out of this nightmare. But I haven’t. I don’t know what I’m going to do without you baby. I miss you so much. Today I’m going to pay tribute to you, I’m going to try and find the words to explain our unexplainable relationship. We were more than best friends, we were more than soulmates. WE WERE SOME OTHER SHIT!! And I miss you so much. Super Black Love 🖤”

Wednesday, November 14, 2018

@CareInActionUSA
**** BREAKING: @NikemaForSenate just got released from jail after being arrested at today’s #counteveryvote rally at the Georgia Capitol. “I am incredibly proud and will continue to stand with the citizens of Georgia to demand that their votes be counted.”

Georgia Senate Democrats are poised to talk about the arrest of Sen. Nikema Williams during a protest Tuesday at the state Capitol, where demonstrators demanded every vote in Georgia's midterm race be counted.

Georgia Senate Democrats are poised to talk about the arrest of State Sen. Nikema Williams during the protest Tuesday at the state Capitol.

The press conference is happening at 11:30 a.m. at the Senate Press Room.

Sen. Williams was among more than a dozen people who were arrested Tuesday night in the rotunda. The protesters demanded every vote to be counted in several tight races.

In a video provided to 11Alive News, at least one sign in the crowd read, "Stacey Abrams IS GOVERNOR" and another "COUNT EVERY VOTE" as protesters chanted "No justice, no peace."

Police took Williams and the others to the Fulton County Jail, where she later bonded out. She was greeted by a small crowd of supporters outside the jail.

"I joined them down on the floor and I was singled out as a black female senator, standing in the rotunda with constituents in the Capitol, in the body that I serve in, and I was singled out and arrested today for standing with so many Georgians who are demanding every vote be counted," she said.

When asked whether police knew she was a state senator when she was arrested, Williams quipped, "I wear my name tag every day in the Capitol."

The protest at the state Capitol came as federal judges throughout Georgia ruled on several election-related lawsuits, including several filed in relation to the Georgia governor race.

The results of that election has yet to be officially decided, though Republican Brian Kemp has already declared himself the winner. Democrat Stacey Abrams, however, has yet to concede as she vows to make sure every vote cast in the election be counted.

A federal judge has ordered Georgia take steps to ensure provisional ballots aren't improperly rejected and to wait until Friday to certify the results of the midterm elections that include an unsettled race for governor.

In a ruling late Monday, U.S. District Judge Amy Totenberg ordered the secretary of state's office to establish and publicize a hotline or website where voters can check whether their provisional ballots were counted and, if not, the reason why.

And, for counties with 100 or more provisional ballots, she ordered the secretary of state's office to review, or have county election officials review, the eligibility of voters who had to cast a provisional ballot because of registration issues.

Totenberg also ruled that Georgia must not certify the election results before Friday at 5 p.m., which falls before the Nov. 20 deadline set by state law.

State elections director Chris Harvey testified at a hearing last week that the state had planned to certify the election results on Wednesday, a day after the deadline for counties to certify their results. He said that would allow preparations to begin for any necessary runoff contests, including one already projected in the race for the next secretary of state.

Current unofficial returns show Republican Brian Kemp leading by a margin that would make him the governor-elect. But Democrat Stacey Abrams insists that enough outstanding votes remain to be counted that could pull Kemp below the majority threshold and force a Dec. 4 runoff.

Totenberg acted in response to a lawsuit filed Nov. 5 by Common Cause Georgia. The suit accuses Kemp, the state's top elections official until he resigned as secretary of state last week, of acting recklessly after a vulnerability in Georgia's voter registration database was exposed shortly before the election.

Kemp's actions increased the risk that eligible voters could be illegally removed from the voter registration database or have registration information illegally altered, the lawsuit says.

Sara Henderson, executive director of Common Cause Georgia, said in an emailed statement that the ruling helps increase voter confidence in elections.

The secretary of state's office was reviewing the order and considering its options, spokeswoman Candice Broce said in an email.

Totenberg's order doesn't change the Tuesday deadline for counties to certify their results. But Abrams' campaign filed a lawsuit Sunday asking a federal court to push that deadline to Wednesday, while also requiring that elections authorities count certain provisional and absentee ballots that have been or would be rejected for "arbitrary reasons."

"I am fighting to make sure our democracy works for and represents everyone who has ever put their faith in it. I am fighting for every Georgian who cast a ballot with the promise that their vote would count," Abrams said in a statement explaining her refusal to end her bid to become the first black woman elected governor in American history.

As of Monday evening, a hearing had not been scheduled for arguments in the case, but Abrams' campaign was expecting a federal court in Atlanta to set a Tuesday hearing, given the time sensitivity.

Unofficial returns show Kemp with a lead of about 60,000 votes out of more than 3.9 million cast; Abrams would need a net gain of about 21,000 votes to force a Dec. 4 runoff. NBC has rated the race too close to call at this time.

The Georgia race, along with Florida's gubernatorial and Senate matchups that are requiring recounts, are among the final measures of a midterm election cycle that already has allowed Democrats to deal serious blows to President Donald Trump.

Democrats already have won the House, flipped seven governor's seats and reclaimed more than 300 state legislative seats in statehouses around the country. The GOP maintained its Senate majority, and could still expand it. But it's looking to hold the governor's mansions in Florida and Georgia to deny Democrats important gains in presidential battlegrounds ahead of the 2020 election.

Republicans have been governor in Georgia since 2003 and in Florida since 1999, and Trump has put a premium on the two states, endorsing both Kemp and Florida's GOP nominee Ron DeSantis when they were in competitive GOP primaries and then campaigning in person for them ahead of the Nov. 6 election.

Georgia's interim Secretary of State Robyn Crittenden on Monday directed county officials to count some provisional ballots that had been rejected because of voters' failure to provide their year of birth, provided the voter's identity and eligibility was still established.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that the State Election Board asked Crittenden to send a letter instructing county election officials how to handle absentee ballots.

Republican Gov. Nathan Deal appointed Crittenden to replace Kemp, who resigned last week after declaring victory in the governor's race. He called his margin — 50.3 percent of the vote — "clear and convincing," but said he wanted Georgians to have confidence in the certification process.

Crittenden's directive was in line with one form of relief sought by the Abrams campaign lawsuit but rejected another.

When casting absentee ballots, voters have to sign an oath and have to write their address and year of birth. The lawsuit asked the judge to order that county election officials accept any absentee ballots on which there was missing or insufficient oath information as long as that doesn't "substantially obstruct" officials from verifying the absentee voter's identity.

The lawsuit says that at least 1,095 qualified voters who cast absentee ballots in Gwinnett County had them "arbitrarily and unlawfully rejected" because of missing or insufficient information.

Under Georgia law, any issues causing a voter to cast a provisional ballot must be remedied within three days of the election — Nov. 9 for this election. The lawsuit asks that county election officials be required to consider evidence proving eligibility through Wednesday at 5 p.m.

Crittenden's guidance to the counties noted that the Nov. 9 deadline for verifying the eligibility of provisional ballots was set by state law.

The lawsuit also asked that provisional ballots cast by a voter registered in another county be counted as if the voter had shown up at the wrong precinct. The lawsuit says that of the 1,556 provisional ballots Fulton County reported having rejected by Nov. 9, nearly 1,000 were disqualified because they were cast by voters whose registration records showed them registered in another county.

Further, the Abrams' campaign is asking that any of the court's orders in the case be applied retroactively to counties that already have certified their returns, meaning those counties would have to reopen their counting process using any new standards and then submit updated returns to the state.

Federal judges in Maryland on Wednesday blocked the state from using its congressional voting map in future elections, ordering political leaders to draw new electoral lines for contests in 2020.

The three-judge panel unanimously threw out the congressional map in a long-running partisan gerrymandering case. The decision gives Maryland officials until March to submit a new redistricting plan.

The judges acknowledged the inherently political redistricting process but declared the boundaries unconstitutional and intentionally designed to target Republican voters in the 6th Congressional District because of their political affiliation.

“When political considerations are taken into account to an extreme, the public perceives an abuse of the democratic process,” wrote Judge Paul V. Niemeyer of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit. He was joined by U.S. District Judge George L. Russell III.

Chief U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar wrote a separate opinion agreeing with the overall judgment and declaring partisan gerrymandering “noxious, a cancer on our democracy.”

If the state is unable to meet the deadline for creating a new map, the court’s order establishes a commission that will create a map of its own.

The Wednesday ruling can be appealed directly to the Supreme Court, which in June avoided answering the question of when extreme partisan gerrymandering is unconstitutional in the Maryland case and in another map case from Wisconsin.

The office of Maryland Attorney General Brian E. Frosh (D), which defended the map, said Wednesday that it is reviewing its options. Legislative leaders declined to comment on the court’s order.

Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who won reelection Tuesday, called the decision “a victory for the vast majority of Marylanders who want free and fair elections.”

“We remain steadfastly committed to moving forward in an open and transparent manner that is free of the partisan influence that has dominated the redistricting process in Maryland for far too long,” said Hogan, who has pushed for a constitutional amendment that would have an independent redistricting commission redraw boundaries.

At the core of the issue is the 6th District in Western Maryland, which was ­redrawn in 2011 to include parts of heavily Democratic Montgomery County. Democratic mapmakers moved hundreds of thousands of voters from Western Maryland out of the 6th District and added Democrats from Montgomery.

The lawsuit was brought by seven Republican voters who lived in the 6th District before the boundaries were reset.

In its ruling Wednesday, the three-judge panel declared the district unconstitutional and found that the state intended to lessen the influence of GOP voters by replacing them with Democrats in violation of the First Amendment right to political association.

“The massive and unnecessary reshuffling of the Sixth District, involving one-half of its population and dictated by party affiliation and voting history, had no other cause than the intended actions of the controlling Democratic officials to burden Republican voters by converting the District” into a Democratic one, Niemeyer wrote in his 59-page opinion.

The court ruling came a day after Democrat David Trone defeated Republican Amie Hoeber by a wide margin in that district, in what was considered the most competitive of Maryland’s House contests.

In a deposition in the case, former governor Martin O’Malley, a Democrat, was blunt about the partisan mapmaking he oversaw, saying Democratic leaders intentionally redrew the districts to try to give their party an advantage.

“Yesterday’s results confirm what we’ve been saying all along. The 6th District isn’t really competitive for Republicans,” said attorney Michael B. Kimberly, who represents the group of Maryland Republicans.

The ruling rejected the argument from the attorney general’s office that Democratic leaders intended only to make the 6th District more competitive.

“It is impossible to flip a seat to the Democrats without flipping it away from the Republicans,” Niemeyer wrote. “There can be no doubt that at every stage of the process, the State’s Democratic officials who put the 2011 redistricting plan in place specifically intended to flip control of the Sixth District from Republicans to Democrats and then acted on that intent.”

The ruling applies to the entire Maryland congressional map as drawn in 2011, but the challengers have proposed a modification at the border between the 6th and 8th districts that could address the court’s concerns without affecting the shape of the other districts.

Before the ruling Wednesday, state Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert) cast doubt on the possibility of an independent commission without a sign-on from other states — Virginia, Pennsylvania and North Carolina — to ensure Maryland Democrats are not at a political disadvantage on Capitol Hill.

“To put that in play without all of those states having to abide by the same rules is not going to happen,” Miller said.

***** What we know about Matthew Whitaker, man who replaces Jeff Sessions

Matthew Whitaker, tapped by President Donald Trump as acting U.S. Attorney General, once made a key reception in a Rose Bowl football game, ran as a conservative Republican for the U.S. Senate in Iowa, and wrote an opinion piece arguing that special counsel Robert Mueller was "going too far" in his investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Whitaker, 49, was named the acting head of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) after Jeff Sessions resigned Wednesday after being asked to do so by Trump, according to a letter Sessions sent to the president.

Trump has long been angered by Sessions' decision to recuse himself in March 2017 from the Russia investigation headed by Mueller.

Whitaker had been Sessions' chief of staff.

"We are pleased to announce that Matthew G. Whitaker, Chief of Staff to Attorney General Jeff Sessions at the Department of Justice, will become our new Acting Attorney General of the United States. He will serve our Country well....," Trump tweeted after accepting Sessions resignation.

Whitaker's appointment was met almost immediately with calls from the Democratic leadership for him to recuse himself from overseeing the Mueller probe.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi slammed the appointment as an attempt to quash the Russia probe.

"It is impossible to read Attorney General Sessions’ firing as anything other than another blatant attempt by @realDonaldTrump to undermine & end Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation," Pelosi tweeted.

"Given his record of threats to undermine & weaken the Russia investigation, Matthew Whitaker should recuse himself from any involvement in Mueller’s investigation. Congress must take immediate action to protect the rule of law and integrity of the investigation. #FollowTheFacts."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also called on Whitaker to recuse himself from the probe.

"Given his previous comments advocating defunding and imposing limitations on the Mueller investigation, Mr. Whitaker should recuse himself from its oversight for the duration of his time as acting attorney general," Schumer said in a statement.

Schumer later tweeted that: "Clearly, the President has something to hide."

Whitaker, a lawyer from Iowa, joined the Department of Justice in August 2017. It was his second stint at the DOJ, where he was appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Iowa in June 2004 by then-President George W. Bush. He resigned from the DOJ in 2009 after Barack Obama became president.

In his first tenure at the DOJ, Whitaker served on the Controlled Substances and Asset Forfeiture Subcommittee for the Attorney General's Advisory Committee and also served on the agency's White Collar Crime and Violent and Organized Crime subcommittees.

A month before joining the DOJ for the second time, Whitaker penned an opinion piece for CNN.com criticizing Mueller's Russia investigation.

"Last month, when President Donald Trump was asked by The New York Times if special counsel Robert Mueller would be crossing a line if he started investigating the finances of Trump and his family, the President said, 'I think that's a violation. Look, this is about Russia," Whitaker, then a CNN legal commentator, wrote in the August 2016 piece.

"The President is absolutely correct. Mueller has come up to a red line in the Russia 2016 election-meddling investigation that he is dangerously close to crossing."

Whitaker wrote that he found the possibility of Mueller digging into Trump's finances as part of the Russian probe "deeply concerning to me."

"He [Mueller] is only authorized to investigate matters that involved any potential links to and coordination between two entities -- the Trump campaign and the Russian government," Whitaker wrote. "People are wrongly pointing to, and taking out of context, the phrase 'any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation' to characterize special counsel's authority as broad."

He also defended Donald Trump Jr. in a CNN interview for taking a controversial meeting in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer claiming to have damaging information about Hillary Clinton, then-candidate Trump's opponent for the White House.

"Anybody would have taken that meeting," Whitaker said in the July 2017 CNN interview.

Whitaker earned a master of business administration and a law degree at the University of Iowa. He also played tight end for the University of Iowa Hawkeyes football team that lost to the University of Washington Huskies in the 1991 Rose Bowl game in Pasadena, California.

"One of the greatest experiences I ever had as a Hawkeye was playing in that Rose Bowl game and having a catch," Whitaker said in the 2015 article in the Hawkeye Nation, a website for University of Iowa sports fans. "To this day I can brag to anyone who will listen that I had a catch in the Rose Bowl."

In 2014, Whitaker ran for the Republican nomination to fill the Senate seat vacated by Democrat Tom Harkin. He finished fourth in the Republican primary won by Joni Ernst, who went on to win the general election.

Following his foray into politics, Whitaker went back to practicing law, becoming managing partner of Des Moines-based law firm, Whitaker Hagenow & Gustoff LLP.

From 2014 to 2017, he served as the executive director of FACT, The Foundation for Accountability & Civic Trust.

Whitaker has also been a member of the University of Iowa Political Science Department Advisory Board and the National Association of Former U.S. Attorneys.

Democratic candidate Stacey Abrams is not conceding the Georgia governor's race to Republican candidate Brian Kemp, arguing that the high stakes contest is too close to call with the possibility of a runoff next month.
Kemp is currently ahead of Abrams by nearly 68,000 votes with 99% of precincts reporting, according to CNN election results. But he only has 50.4% of the vote. If neither candidate receives 50%, there will be a runoff in early December.

"I'm here tonight to tell you votes remain to be counted. There's voices that are waiting to be heard," Abrams, who would be the nation's first black female governor, told supporters early Wednesday morning gathered in Atlanta.

Kemp told supporters he is confident of his victory.

"There are votes left to count. But we have a very strong lead. And folks, make no mistake, the math is on our side to win this election," he said.

According to a statement provided to CNN by her campaign, Abrams is holding off on conceding to see if a runoff is possible.

The campaign cited several specific places in the state that could play a role in a scenario to force the runoff, including three of the state's largest counties that "have reported only a portion of the votes that were submitted by early mail" and four other large counties that "have reported exactly 0 votes by mail," according to the campaign. Together, it said, the seven counties "are expected to return a minimum of 77,000 ballots."

"These counties also represent heavily-Democratic leaning constituencies, and the majority of those votes are anticipated to be for Stacey Abrams," the statement read. The campaign also said absentee ballots could make a difference.

"Across our state, folks are opening up the dreams of voters in absentee ballots, and we believe our chance for a stronger Georgia is just within reach," Abrams said Wednesday morning.

Voters rights issues have taken front and center in the the high-profile gubernatorial race between Kemp, the GOP secretary of state, and Abrams, a state representative.

Democrats have accused Kemp of a conflict of interest as he refused to step away from his post overseeing state elections while he campaigned for governor.

Last month, a federal judge ruled Georgia election officials had to stop rejecting absentee ballots with voters' signatures that didn't appear to match signatures on record.

On Sunday, Kemp's office opened an investigation into the Georgia Democratic Party for what it said was an attempted hack of the state's voter registration system, without providing proof. Georgia Democrats flatly denied the allegation.

He dismissed critics alleging that he weaponized state law to suppress the minority vote as "outside agitators."

A lawsuit filed Tuesday in a Georgia federal court by five state voters asked a judge to strip Kemp of his powers over the midterm election -- including any potential runoffs.

Voters in the Peach State also faced long lines and malfunctioning machines during Tuesday's vote.

LAST NIGHT, BEN JEALOUS, the Democratic candidate for governor in Maryland, lost his race to incumbent Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, 56 percent to 43 percent.

Jealous would have been Maryland’s first African-American governor and was running on one of the most left-wing policy platforms in the country,

Although polls had been showing Hogan with a significant lead for months, progressives hoped a strong blue wave on Election Day could bring about a major upset. After all, Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 2-1 ratio in Maryland.

But Jealous didn’t lose because he ran on issues like “Medicare for All,” a $15 minimum wage, and legalizing marijuana. In fact, voters in Maryland largely agree with Jealous on his signature policy issues.

A Goucher College survey released in mid-September found that 54 percent of Maryland residents hold a favorable opinion on “Medicare for All” or single-payer health care, with 33 percent holding an unfavorable view. Support for other key parts of Jealous’s plan polled even higher. Seventy-one percent of Marylanders support raising the statewide minimum wage to $15 dollars per hour, with just a quarter of residents against it.

This was actually a substantial jump from February, when Goucher found 66 percent of Marylanders supported the $15 minimum wage. On legalizing marijuana for recreational use, 62 percent of Maryland residents support it, with just one-third opposed.

A Hobbled Campaign

The primary reason Jealous lost is that his campaign couldn’t pull in the necessary funds to compete effectively. Despite winning 22 out of 24 counties in the state’s crowded Democratic primary, the Jealous campaign’s own internal polling revealed that as of July, one-third of Maryland voters, and one-quarter of the state’s Democratic voters, did not know who Jealous was. He had never run for office before, but had earned the teachers union’s endorsement in the primary, which many believe helped secure him his June victory.

Meanwhile, Hogan started out with a big fundraising advantage and a high approval rating. Although Jealous assumed he could turn things around after Labor Day, by then it was too late to change the narrative.

At the end of August, Hogan had $9.4 million to spend for his re-election campaign, compared to Jealous’s mere $385,000. And the gap never closed. In the final two weeks of the campaign, Hogan had almost 12 times more cash than Jealous, or $3.3 million to the Democrat’s $275,000. Few people wanted to donate to a race that seemed uncompetitive, which in turn made it even less competitive as the weeks went on.

While Hogan’s campaign and the Republican Governors Association have blasted negative ads against Jealousnonstop since July, Jealous’s campaign didn’t run its first TV ad until mid-September, and the Democratic Governors Association didn’t run their first ad against Hogan until late October. Jealous couldn’t afford to compete on television, or even really through mailers.

The Jealous campaign understood that it needed to invest more in on-the-ground organizing to make up for the complacency that gripped Democrats in 2014, when Hogan eked out his upset victory. So this year, 70 Democratic organizers were hired to work across the state, compared to 15 field organizers for the state’s Democrat-coordinated campaign in 2014.

But even Jealous supporters noted that his campaign was making it difficult to rally support for his team. On his campaign website, there was nowhere for supporters to order lawn signs, bumper stickers, or other paraphernalia to demonstrate support — unlike on Hogan’s website, where such ordinary purchases were made prominently visible and available. Supporters had to ask around to learn that they had to show up in person at a campaign office to get any swag. That information wasn’t even available on the website.

And while Democratic candidates across the country have been leaning on new media platforms like viral two-minute online-only campaign ads, the Jealous campaign relied predominantly on awkward and less popular tools like Facebook Live.

Lack of Endorsements

The Washington Post has been writing favorably about Hogan for years, so much so that a reader wrote a letter to the editor in June asking, “Seriously, has Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) changed his name? Apparently so, at least according to The Post. In nearly every reference to the governor, The Post’s writers insist on referencing him with a new first name of ‘popular,’ as in the popular Maryland governor.”

As a result, it was unsurprising when the Washington Post gave its endorsement to Hogan, praising him for having the “agility and sense to govern as a moderate — that disappearing breed of American politician.” The Post dismissed Jealous’s plans as mostly “politically unrealistic” and “unwise.” But more staggering was the Baltimore Sun, which endorsed Jealous in the primary but endorsed Hogan in the general election, despite literally acknowledging in its own endorsementthat Hogan’s “actions in office have too often treated [Baltimore] as an afterthought, if not with outright contempt.” (Hogan’s decision to cancel the Red Line light rail, a project that had been in the works for a decade and to which the federal government was going to contribute $900 million, was a disastrously cruel move for the long-neglected city.)

Outside Maryland, the national press was also largely uninterested in Jealous’s general election challenge, especially when compared to the attention paid to Stacey Abrams and Andrew Gillum, black candidates running to be Georgia’s and Florida’s first African-American governors, respectively. The Maryland race was deemed uncompetitive, and thus less exciting to cover.

During the primary, most of Maryland’s Democratic establishment lined up behind Rushern Baker, the outgoing county executive in Prince George’s County. (Kevin Kamenetz, the county executive for Baltimore County was also a frontrunner, and had raised more money than other candidates in the primary, but he died unexpectedly of cardiac arrest six weeks before the election.)

After Jealous won, several dozen Maryland Democrats announced their support for Hogan, though most were older white men who hadn’t served in office for years. Others had received political appointments from the governor, or had records of supporting Republican candidates in the past.

Jealous did end up securing endorsements from the Democratic Party’s current elected officials, but some were much slower to voice their support, and many remained muted in their enthusiasm. The long-serving state Senate president, Mike Miller, was a prime example. He was guarded in his support for Jealous, while being enthusiastic in his praise for Hogan’s work. Ike Leggett, the outgoing executive of affluent Montgomery County, at first withheld his endorsement of Jealous over tax issues that he said would hurt his wealthy constituents. When he finally did endorse Jealous in in mid-October, he did so in the world’s most half-hearted way. When the Washington Post asked him if Jealous would be a better governor than Hogan, Leggett declined to say yes. “That’s a good question,” he said. “I’m simply for the Democratic nominee.” About 45 percent of Montgomery County ended up voting for Hogan.

It’s unlikely that vocal enthusiasm from Leggett and Miller could have really changed Jealous’s fundraising numbers in a substantial way, but they certainly didn’t help.

Jealous also tamped down enthusiasm from some otherwise natural allies. Despite running on one of the most progressive platforms in the country, he didn’t even try to court some of the newly established Democratic Socialists of America chapters or get their endorsements. He also upset a lot of leftists over the summer, when he disavowed socialism in a way that not even Barack Obama did during the eight years he was blasted for being on the left. After Hogan called Jealous a “far-left socialist” in an interview, a different reporter followed up by asking Jealous if he identified as a socialist. Jealous responded, “Are you fucking kidding me?” The Republican Governors Association funded a TV ad this summer that featured Jealous saying, “Go ahead, call me a socialist,” cutting off the rest of his sentence, in which he went on to say, “It doesn’t change the fact that I’m a venture capitalist.” The Jealous campaign demanded that local stations pull the ad for being false and too misleading.

Larry Hogan Was a Better Campaigner

Hogan’s schtick of acting moderate was largely successful, in part due to the light press coverage his administration has received over the past four years. Over the summer, for example, he earned glowing national headlines by recalling Maryland’s four National Guard troops from the southern U.S. border — thus appearing to be someone willing to stand up to Trump and his family separation policy — but his actual record on immigration was far more hostile and overlooked. Hogan also moved to the left when he felt he needed to politically: In July, he announced a new student debt relief plan and announced he would no longer take donations or an endorsement from the National Rifle Association. In 2014, he took the gun lobby’s money and endorsement, and also received an A- rating.

It also helped that while Maryland voters are generally Democratic, they’re not always very progressive. Fifty-six percent of Marylanders think their state taxes are “too high,” and Hogan spent the bulk of his campaign emphasizing that he’d continue to cut taxes and that Jealous would significantly raise them. While the Jealous campaign was banking on major turnout in the city of Baltimore to push him over the edge, in the end, nearly one-third of Baltimore went for Hogan, up from 22 percent in 2014.

In the Maryland legislature, however, Democrats maintained their veto-proof majority. Republicans had targeted eight Democratic seats and hoped to flip five, but failed. Baltimore’s three largest suburban counties will now also be led by Democrats, with Anne Arundel and Howard counties flipping blue.

With a seat on the Supreme Court hanging in the balance, Christine Blasey Ford and Brett Kavanaugh are appearing in front of senators to state their case and share their stories. Here are some of the key takeaways so far.

Everyone knew what Christine Blasey Ford was going to say before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday morning. Her formal opening statement was released to the public on Wednesday evening.

Reading what she was going to say and hearing her speak it, in a quiet, sometimes faltering voice, are two very different things, however.

The committee hearing began with statements by Republican chairman Chuck Grassley and ranking Democrat Dianne Feinstein, and the exchanging accusations of political obfuscation and procedural misconduct threatened to cover the proceedings in a political fog.

For a taut 20 minutes, however, Ms Ford cut through the fog with searing emotion. She spoke of traumatic memories and decades of shame; of a civic duty to come forward and recent months of hounding media and death threats.

The images of her speaking - the first glimpse the public at large has had of her besides a few grainy photos - will linger well beyond Thursday's hearing or even Brett Kavanaugh's ultimate professional fate.

Once Ms Ford concluded, the fog descended again. Thanks in large part to a disjointed format that featured five-minute segments alternating between veteran sex-crimes prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, a surrogate questioner for the Republicans, and Democratic senators, there was little flow to proceedings.

It was as if viewers were flipping back and forth between a CourtTV criminal cross-examination and a public-access television congressional hearing.

Democrats succeeded in gleaning a few memorable moments from Ms Ford. She said she was 100% certain that Brett - referring to Mr Kavanaugh repeatedly by his first name - was the teenager who assaulted her.

She also, in reply to a question by Vermont Democrat Pat Leahy, recounted how the enduring recollection she has from the incident was Mr Kavanaugh and his friend, Mark Judge, laughing as they stumbled down the stairs after the alleged attack.

Ms Mitchell, in her interrogation, pulled at a number of threads in Ms Ford's story.

Who drove her to and from the house on the night of the party?

Why did she tell Senate investigators that she couldn't meet them in Washington because she was afraid of flying if she frequently travelled by air for pleasure?

Did she or did she not share her 2012 therapist records with a reporter from the Washington Post?

That final line of questioning is key, since it's those records that help corroborate that Ms Ford had spoken about the assault well before Mr Kavanaugh became a candidate for the Supreme Court.

The other questions seemed more geared toward undermining Ms Ford's credibility - the kind of strategy useful during depositions or trials to undermine a jury's trust in a witness or, perhaps, force them to crack under the accumulated pressure of the interrogation.

Every five minutes, however, Democrats threw Ms Ford a lifeline.

In the end, however, Ms Mitchell herself seemed slightly exasperated by the format she was working under. When it comes to trying to arrive at the accurate recollection of trauma, she said, "there's no study that shows that this setting, in five-minute increments, is the best way to do that.

As the first half of the hearing drew to a close, the senators began to argue about entering various outside statements into the record, only to be interrupted by one of Ms Ford's lawyers.

"Can we be excused?" he asked.

With the partisan fog thick again, it's a sentiment many Americans may have shared.

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